Cloudy my BizTalk is

Now that the dust clouds are settling down and we can all see hybrid is the most powerful future of cloud and on-premises solutions, many organizations are wondering how to move forward. “Just” moving everything to the cloud isn’t a solution that works for everyone in the real world. Next to the point that for your
on-premises systems it may not even make sense to move to the cloud at all, we very likely also have an existing infrastructure and team that has been (heavily) invested in over the past years or even decades. So our question to BizTalk developers and managers is:

"Why would you ‘throw’ away perfectly good hardware, existing and proven solutions
or have your expert staff shift their expertise, just because we ‘have’ to go cloud?"

Sometimes it’s best just to keep your feet firmly on the ground. Using the best of what is available in both worlds, and use it when you need it, makes far more sense. Though we have preached this for many years now, we finally see movement in this direction from the major companies (including those like Microsoft) too. This is no different for the world of systems integration. The domain where we ‘tie’ together data and business, processes and (complementary) systems that lets you collaborate within your business and partner organizations. 

System integration insight

To integrate or share data there are several well-known and proven platforms out there. MuleSoft (recently bought by Salesforce), Tibco, etc. and from the Microsoft stack of course: BizTalk. The very powerful and scalable framework that has been around for almost two decades now. Are these platforms disappearing now that the cloud is there? No, of course not. Microsoft has rolled out more versions and updates of BizTalk the last few years, than the years before when it’s role was undisputed.

But there is a whole new generation of platforms like Logic Apps, Dell Boomi and similar microservices solutions that claim to be capable of ‘solving’ all your integration needs. Well; maybe.. Those platforms are very flexible, but also have many restrictions. For example, they talk HTTP, which is not always what you want or need. They have limitations in size, are always in the cloud and that may therefore cause some security concerns.

And above all it requires a very different expertise than the developers, (that know your business well!) currently have. Of course, you can have them explore new technology (and so you should), but now that we live in a time where the demand from the business side goes faster and faster, you just do not always have the luxury to toss out the old and start tinkering with something new. Especially now that General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforces that you should always at least think twice before you start tossing your data in all directions. And above all it requires a very different expertise than the developers, (that know your business well!) currently have.

Best of both worlds 

Of course, you can have them explore new technology (and so you should), but now that we live in a time where the demand from the business side goes faster and faster, you just do not always have the luxury to toss out the old and start tinkering with something new. Especially now that General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforces that you should always at least think twice before you start tossing your data in all directions.

Does that mean cloud and those platforms are just toys? No, definitely not. They serve specific scenarios better than any of the ‘old’ platforms. If they would teach us one thing it is, that with the right, flexible tooling, you can simplify many tedious tasks.

By using a smart platform and therefore making the developers focus on the business problem at hand, instead of all the plumbing, it will speed up and shorten the projects you need done. And by simplifying development you will reduce costs, while being able to answer quickly to demands from the business.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could combine (hybrid) the power of the proven integration platforms and the easy of the new microservices cloud platforms? Well; you can have the best of both worlds with the BizTalk extension suite of the Easy bus platform, that makes using BizTalk a whole lot easier.

<- Click to read more about the BizTalk extension suite and Easy bus capability's .

Read more about the platform on the Easy bus page here

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More information

Do you want to know more about what Easy bus could mean for your BizTalk business?

info@itrajectum.nl | (+31) 030 666 25 17

It is unnecessary to emphasize the need to ensure that messaging between different systems is adequately secured and selectively in which data can be sent at all. A practical safety instrument that can be used for B2B data security is the Easy bus ESB platform. But what role does the platform play in the safe management and exchange of your company data?

Data protection through Insight

The Easy bus platform first gives insight into the complexity of the IT landscape. It creates a picture of which systems are connected and which connections exchange data with each other. With the Easy bus you get a porter in the house that can easily determine what comes in and what goes out again. You can use this insight to help you personalize the existing IT architecture and make it easier to remove any vulnerabilities.

Precisely set up data traffic

The insight that Easy bus creates helps to set up the IT landscape precisely, so that no redundant data can be sent, for example, that may contain sensitive information. A properly tuned landscape ensures that data remains inaccessible to other systems, processes and/or users. Data exists only ‘ realtime ‘ and is not permanently or long-term stored on the platform itself. Only metadata is needed specifically for managing and monitoring the processes and is stored momentarily. In that case, of course, strongly encrypted. The metadata can only be read by the own easy bus instance, so even when the easy bus hardware is stolen, the data is encrypted and therefore completely unusable.

Double safety

Easy bus offers powerful security on all fronts. The platform uses encryption on connections and data. In addition, it can communicate securely with other systems through the industry-known, stringent security protocols. It is also an option to implement a different security standard on the platform, used within your organization. In addition to securing the platform itself, every connection to and from the platform is secure (with or without a different security protocol).

Over twenty years of experience in securing data has been incorporated into the building of the platform developed by iTrajectum. In addition to understanding, the platform provides resources to set data accessibility correctly and, finally, to secure the platform and the data in multiple ways for the highest achievable message integrity. Easy bus is a useful tool for securing communication from on-premise systems to external partner s or cloud, because good security (fast) is indispensable.

Want to know more about Easy bus data security? Please contact us at + 31 (0) 30 66 62 517 or info@itrajectum.nl.